Do you love your work – or hate it? Are you getting closer to your dreams or further away?
“The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.”
– William Butler Yeats
I gave up any active involvement in engineering in 1984 and yet the civil engineering institute has chosen to keep me on their newsletter mailing list (perhaps in the forlorn hope that I might sometime return to the fold??)
I’m always curious to read the latest news in ‘Construction World’ – I suppose it resonates with part of my past. But it also serves the purpose to make me stop and think about how my career – and life – did a 180 degree turn over many years.
The most important lesson
The most important life lesson that I learnt is that we all have a heart and we all have a head but not all of us know when to follow one and not the other!
The head
Our ‘head’ is profoundly influenced by our experiences, the media, our peers and other influential people in our lives. We grow up to appreciate that life is governed by a set of rules that determine what is possible and not possible, what is ‘the right thing to do’ and what is the ‘wrong thing to do’, what is expected of us and what we should expect of others.
The heart
Our ‘heart’ is very different. It resists any form of ‘conditioning’ by society and refuses to accept that anything is impossible or wrong for us, if it is related to the mission that we arrived on earth to fulfill.
The ‘head’, if you like, is there to protect us from the ‘pain’, embarrassment or rejection that we could experience from trying to go beyond our self imposed limitations and the real or perceived societal expectations.
The ‘heart’ is there to protect and promote our true best interests, spurring us on to do whatever it takes to pursue our authentic purpose, in the knowledge that this is the only route to real joy and happiness.
A tug of war
Choosing a career often involves a great tug of war between head and heart. The former places great store in what others think, the demands of society and the likely propensity for financial reward and prestige. The latter cares only about whether the work is aligned with our deeper purpose and our authentic values.
Pressured
So many people, pressured to ‘live up to their potential’, do something others see as important or meaningful and be the best providers for their families, let their heads prevail when their hearts are nudging them in a different direction.
The result is ultimately discontent, lack of fulfillment and often frustration as it becomes more and more problematic to break away from a situation on which they have become increasingly dependent.
If you’re in a career that you find unsatisfying or unfulfilling, this is almost certainly because your work lacks alignment with your values and your life purpose.
Just an inbuilt protection mechanism
It can be painful and downright fearful to contemplate change but remember that this is just the inbuilt protection mechanism employed by your ‘head’ to protect your ego.
Like magic
The great news is that those who do summon up the courage to make such changes get to experience amazing personal freedom and a renewed sense of meaning. And when that happens, just like magic, all sorts of new possibilities start to make themselves known!